“
He buried his face in his hands for a moment, and rubbed it. Then he forced himself to sit up straight and look at her.
“Jane,” he said, “I’ve treated you like a stranger in your own house. I guess we both have, your mother and I. I’ve been trying to…to get better, and your mother’s been trying to help me, but that’s no excuse for shutting you out. I promise you that’s going to change from now on. She couldn’t believe everything she’d been through in the last two days. From the moment she’d come home with her new haircut it seemed as though everything in her life had begun to change.
Suddenly she was pretty—especially with the braces gone. Suddenly she had parents again. Suddenly she was no longer a virgin.
She ran the palm of her hand over the new sheet where the stain had been. Peter. Peter hadn’t changed.
Well, yes he had: he, too, was no longer a virgin. She felt an upwelling of love for him. Oh god, she wished he was still here. She could think of nothing she’d like better than to be able to lie down in bed right now, with him there to hold her.
